Just
returned from
San Diego and LIGHTFAIR International 2016. Where
light,
technology and design converged to reveal new solutions, new knowledge
and new discoveries. All at the world’s largest annual
architectural and commercial lighting trade show and conference.

If you think our
HVAC/BACnet centric approach to automating buildings is presently a
blur you
need
to see the radical changes in the world of large building
lighting. Their blur is occurring faster and in color and comes
with powerful energy saving new technology. LEDs replace most
conventional
types of
lighting.

This new LED fabric
for building lighting allows incredible new efficiency with dimming and
color
control of light while providing a significant shift to low voltage DC
power and amazing control from the edge or building central or the
cloud.

This insight from
USAI provides insight into the power of light on us.

There is more to light than meets the
eye — a lot more, in fact. While light enables us to see our world in
vivid color and stunning detail, we have learned that light also
regulates many biological responses in people which are not associated
with our sense of sight, including an 'internal clock' in our bodies
that makes us alert during the day and sleepy at night. The daily
changes in our physical, mental and behavioral states that respond to a
light-and-dark cycle is commonly known as our circadian rhythm. Just as
a sunflower faces and tracks the sun to maximize the amount of sunshine
it receives, historically people have always planned their lives around
the availability of daylight. In the absence of man-made light sources,
people rose with the dawn and went to sleep in the dark: when the sun
went down and the campfire was reduced to ashes, the moon and stars
provided our only light. Light around us signaled to our bodies when it
was time to be active, and when it was time to rest. It was black and
white. Light kept our daily lives in harmony with local time. This
harmony is referred to as "entrainment": an entrained circadian system
is aligned with the natural light/dark cycle of the solar day.

For demonstration I
chose this company, but the floor of LFI was covered with demos on
control of their powerful new fabric LED which allows art to be applied
to buildings for better interfacing with the client.

I will write more but need now to get our May issue online and
there is enough information here for a new magazine.

One booth at Light
Fair that brought clarity to the colorful blur that was on the floor
displayed a completely new DC 24 volt ceiling grid for our
buildings done by http://www.emergealliance.org/. An open
industry association leading
the rapid adoption of safe DC power distribution in commercial
buildings through the development of EMerge Alliance standards.

Some head shake
concepts here which are closer than you think. Imagine connection to
the
Tesla DC grid battery and you are starting to see the future.

Had a great chat
with Brian Patterson, President, EMerge Alliance. Brian and I have been
talking for years but this demo was the closest I have seen to the
concept complete. They have sites operating. I loved when he
called the DC ceiling grid the collection grid as well as the
connection grid as well as the distribution grid. DC is so
powerful;
Edison was right, Westinghouse was wrong. Can you imagine a world
without the ugly electrical grid and its polluting politics, a world
where everyone was off grid? Can you imagine how far we would be now if
Edison had invented the LED and PV cells......big smile?

The ceiling had a clip system which
allowed lights to be added and powered from the DC ceiling grid. Other
devices like cameras, occupancy detection, WiFi, VAV boxes power
and control etc. No hard wiring required, all completely retrofit-able
above the ceiling by the device installer. Even a connection to an AC
power
supply can be added to DC grid.

Great work opening this new space Emerge.

I am over whelmed by how LED will not
only change the lighting industry but our industry as well. Keep posted.

We have a start on this change with these two articles in our
May issue

How
Advanced IoT Systems Automate Commercial Buildings From
the Direct Digital Control technology revolution of the 1980s to the
BACnet movement, the open Internet, and now finally the move towards
buildings as connected digital platforms powered by sensor technologies
from the Internet of Things. - Morgan Lang, SWEENEY, Strategic
Marketing & Public Relations

Plug-and-Play
LED Lighting and Control Systems
We saw an opportunity to leverage the LED lamp by integrating sensors
and controls to deliver a simpler plug-and-play control system that
provided comprehensive building intelligence. - Tom Quinn, Lunera